House Majority Leader Eric Cantor all but ruled out Tuesday another short-term continuing resolution next week absent a budget deal first with the White House and said he was not party to potential compromises discussed by Speaker John Boehner’s office with Senate Democrats and the administration.

“Time is up here,” said the Virginia Republican, telling reporters that he would oppose “a short-term CR without a long-term commitment” and that the leadership should still push for the full $61 billion in spending cuts approved by the House last month.

“That is the House position. That is what we are driving for,” Cantor said. When asked specifically about discussions about a potential compromise framework that would restore about $26 billion of the House cuts, Cantor said he read newsreports but had no knowledge of that from fellow Republicans.

“I think we ought to be finding as many spending cuts as we possibly can consistent with the desire of our members,” Cantor said.

The leader’s comments are important on two fronts. Cantor, as majority leader, controls the pacing of legislation on the House floor and will decide the scheduling of any future CR to keep the government operating after the current resolution expires April 8. Second, and perhaps more important politically, his comments risk undercutting efforts by the speaker’s office to bridge the differences with Senate Democrats and President Barack Obama.

As approved Feb. 19, the House-passed package of spending cuts proposed to reduce nonemergency appropriations this year to $1.026 trillion, about $102 billion below Obama’s initial budget requests for 2011 and $61.3 billion below the rate of spending under a CR that expired March 4.

In the weeks since, Congress has enacted two more stopgap bills to avert a shutdown, the second of which will expire next Friday. In each case, savings have been included that would be a $10 billion down payment toward what both sides hope will be a final deal soon. But tea party conservatives have grown restless, and when 54 Republicans broke ranks, Boehner had to rely on Democrats to help pass the most recent CR.

Cantor was loyal to the speaker in that fight, but as the pressure from tea party activists has increased since, he has been watched carefully by Democrats who accuse him of making it harder for Boehner to reach a deal with the White House.

The Virginia Republican has condemned this as a partisan ploy but his answers Tuesday were surprising since he would be expected to have more knowledge than he allowed of the negotiations this far.

Boehner’s representatives have made no final commitments themselves and insist that any agreement on spending is contingent on an agreement on funding limitations attached to the budget bill. But there’s no question — confirmed by Republicans and Democrats alike — that some middle ground has been discussed by both sides.

Republicans have suggested a possible top line of $1.052 trillion and the administration has said it is prepared to move toward $1.058 trillion — leaving a difference of $6 billion. The latest White House offer follows a discussion between Obama’s chief of staff, Bill Daley, and Boehner’s staff and represents a significant effort to move toward the numbers discussed by the GOP.

Measured against the $61 billion in initial House cuts, the new offer would be about halfway. And measured against Obama’s budget requests, it would be a reduction of about $70 billion.